Study of the interactions of atomic and molecular oxygen with O2 and N2 by scattering data

Abstract

Absolute total scattering cross sections for the O2–O2, O2–N2, O–N2, and O–O2 systems are measured in the thermal energy range. A glory structure is present for O2–O2, O2–N2, and O–N2. For O–N2 this structure appears to be partially quenched due to the anisotropy of the 3P oxygen atom. For O–O2 the structure is almost completely quenched because of the presence of a manifold of interactions. From the analysis of the cross section data, information about the interaction potential of all these systems of atmospheric interest is obtained. For O2–O2 a potential able to reproduce also the spectroscopic and thermophysical data is proposed.